How to Raise Capital for Your Brand: TJ Bongiorno (Founder Outgoing Co)

Sean Frank (0:00)

All right, welcome back to the Operators Pod. This is a Help an Operator Out episode. We've got TJ Bongiorno from The Outgoing Co. And if you have been wanting a episode on raising capital, this is the episode. I got Mike with me. We're gonna talk focus for sure, multiple products, companies growing, but really we're gonna dig into like, what are the moves that TJ needs to make? TJ, why don't you start us off with, tell us the business, tell us what you sell, tell us the Trailing 12 and then maybe like we can just kick in to, how the hell you got started and all that good stuff, just for people listening, watching.

TJ Bongiorno (0:36)

Sure, 100%. First and foremost, thank you guys. I really appreciate this. This is so cool.

I watch every episode. I'm glad to be here. I'm happy to be here.

Mike Beckham (0:44)

Wait until you hear the advice before you think.

Sean Frank (0:46)

Yeah, yeah. He's gonna be like, God, what a waste of my life.

TJ Bongiorno (0:49)

Well, let's keep the rose colored glasses on before we get into it. So as you mentioned, Matt, like The Outgoing Co is the name of the brand, actually formerly Ramp Health. They got a full rebrand last year at some point, so I could own my IP. It was a trademark thing. You can get into that later.

I consider the founding date, July 1st, 2023 That was when we shift our first orders. Our trailing 12 right now is about 3 mil, and we sell supplements and beverages. So all functional stuff. As the name shows, The Outgoing Co, everything's meant to be used as social and the alcohol alternative space.

Sean Frank (1:23)

Very cool. And can you just give us an outline of which products, do you have a specific product as a hero? Do you have a, is it kind of everything? Because that was actually one of the first questions I had is like, why so many things?

TJ Bongiorno (1:37)

It's a very, very straightforward story. That doesn't look straightforward. So if you look over my shoulder, my left shoulder, Audi right there, that's in the bag, the white bag with the purple, that is our hero product. That is what we have a subscription play. It's like an 84% take rate on subscription. That's in short, that's how we make our money as a business.

I had the idea over a year ago, the genius idea that I was going to get into the RTD as well, because I thought it was sexier and I was so young and ignorant without realizing what this was going to entail. And that's when I started developing Yapper. We ended up launching Yapper, I believe March 16th is the first day that a sale came through for the cans online. It's very new, but we sold 100,000 cans plus in that time, DTC, so it's really ripping. And that actually kind of brings us to, some of the stuff we're going to talk about today is, I'm in a situation where I have a product that is loved, and it's crushing, and it's ripping, and it's going to pass my hero product. I know it is just from the RTD and the way that we're seeing things, but finding that balance. And then I have a third product called 3plnic. It's a little bottle. It's right over my shoulder right there.

It is a daily multivitamin and mineral replacement for people that use nicotine. So it's made specifically like if you zin, if you vape, you deplete more zinc, you deplete more magnesium, etc. This is meant to just put that stuff back in, kind of like what Stasis does for Adderall and Cheers does for alcohol.

I started that as another brand, realized that was really stupid because I'm just new to this. So then I actually shut that brand down and brought it under the umbrella because I had all the inventory. I just relabeled everything. So that is a skew that we actually haven't pushed on that much yet. But it fit into because lifestyle, people are going out when you're drinking, you're also ripping zins or vapes or whatever, and it all kind of fits together and that's the brand. And those are our three skews.

Sean Frank (3:27)

And you're selling beverage DTC? And can you make any money selling beverage DTC?

TJ Bongiorno (3:33)

We have over 80 percent gross margin on the cans right now.

Sean Frank (3:36)

Even with shipping?

TJ Bongiorno (3:38)

Well, shipping comes into the equation a little bit different.

Sean Frank (3:40)

Yeah, because I've always heard that's what makes beverage particularly...